A refugee in France for two decades, Sergei Jirnov, a former member of the SVR, the KGB’s foreign intelligence, remains one of the best connoisseurs of the first circle of Russian power. And for good reason: he was a student with Vladimir Putin.

Shortly after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the KGB had sent him to the ENA as a trainee. With one mission: to infiltrate the French elite. He just published The Escalade, Is Putin Really Crazy? *.

Sergei Jirnov: Yevgeny Prigozhin is a bit like Vladimir Putin’s Frankenstein. It is the monster that turns against its creator. Putin did not feel that his creature was turning against him. And he didn’t react. However, for several months, it has been clear that Prigojine, the creator of Wagner, is taking on a new dimension. Until last September, Yevgueni Prigojine sued all those who accused him of being responsible for and financially responsible for Wagner.

Since that date, he not only assumes it, but he puts himself on stage at the head of his troops on all occasions. With a “political” objective: to show the Russians that he is a strong man, a warrior. The implication is clear: Putin is aging, he does not come to see the soldiers on the front lines, his army is tired, corrupt, inefficient; I am the only one able to save the country.

Why this “coming out” and this staging?

Yevgeny Prigojine understood that after the war in Ukraine a new sequence would open. This conflict is a disaster. And he imagines being able to be a recourse. Thanks to his fortune, estimated at 15 billion dollars, his 25,000 men, but also to the complicity he has in the services and in the army (his executives are former FSB, former senior officers), he thinks he’s untouchable. To see in him only a bandit is a mistake, because he is a political animal. For several months, Putin let him do it, because he thought it wise to let the generals and his defense minister bicker with Yevgeny Prigojine. After all, the Kremlin was the arbiter of rivalries. What a mistake !

He did not see that Prigozhin was building a political image and wanted to use the same strategies with which he himself came to power in 2000 through the war in Chechnya. At the time, Putin was only Prime Minister and he had very little power. He played with the war to impose himself. He did not see Prigozhin’s game and he considered that the army officers who warned him were exaggerating. He didn’t take them seriously.

It is a long term calculation. Prigozhin understood that Russia will lose this war against Ukraine. He therefore staged the Battle of Bakhmout for his benefit. At the beginning of January, he took on this fight on the mode: the army is ineffective, you will see what you will see. Then, in May, in the middle of the G20, he announced “the victory of Bakhmout” by announcing that he was giving way to the army. Putin presented medals to some of his cadres and congratulated him. He thus appears in public opinion as a winner.

During this time, he made a big “political” tour of the provinces to sound out governors, officers, politicians, who took selfies with him and got him to applaud. The problem is that the army saw its game and demanded that its men be disarmed since they are no longer at the front. Putin validated this decision: Wagner was to surrender in July. Prigozhin could thus lose his main force, his personal army. That’s what drove him to action.

So his offensive on Rostov is the act of a “desperate”?

No way. A few days ago, the FSB tried unsuccessfully to arrest Yevgeny Prigozhin in St. Petersburg. He was therefore warned by his supporters in the first circle of power. He has several tricks up his sleeve: he has several generals with him who were sacked a few months ago and whom he hired to “buy” their power. By the way, notice his caution: he let the Russian planes based in Rostov-on-Don carry out their operations against Ukraine so that no one would blame him for weakening the front. He also took out insurance from certain politicians.

He is also today the most famous Russian, apart from Putin, in Russia and abroad. A recent poll placed him among the most popular people in the country. He “holds” his men by money, but also by bonds comparable to those that one builds in prison (he spent ten years there). He pays a lot of money to the widows of his fighters, he treats them in the best hospitals, etc. Last asset: Evgueni Prigojine can finally get his hands on a barracks where nuclear warheads are stored. At that time, it will be impossible to dislodge him, and Putin will have to negotiate.

He wants to do politics. He also made a pact with his main cadres to take over the country. There is an obvious part of megalomania in him. And it’s probably his fault: already, a part of the Russian elite who only half-heartedly supported Putin and his war in Ukraine knows that with Prigojine it will be much worse.

* Albin Michel (224 pages, 20 euros)